"Don't," Carter said. "They've only got us outnumbered by about forty to one."
Namid confronted Zarak. "You tricked us! You led us into a trap!"
"I think not," Zarak said. "You seek the Nefrazi? Very well. Here are the Nefrazi. Some of us, at least."
Somebody in the crowd of riflemen recognized the voice, calling out, "Ho, Zarak, is that you?"
"None other."
This caused quite a stir in the crowd. The head man of the group came to the fore, his men respectfully making a wide berth for him.
He was a spry bearded elder, dignified, erect, with a face like the carved head of a walking stick, a long white billy-goat beard, and the eyes of a fanatic.
Malik, sheik of the tribe — for that's who he was — seized the bridle of Zarak's camel, while he turned his hooded gaze upon the rider.
After a pause, he announced to the tribe: "Zarak!"
They sent up a great cheer.
Sheik Malik asked, "How do you come to be here, Zarak? Did you break free from their stinking jail of stone?"
Zarak indicated Carter, Namid, and Khamsina. "They freed me. To them I owe my liberty, much as it galls me to admit it."
"Who are they?"
"I can tell you this: they are the enemies of our enemies."
"Then they are our friends!" Malik said.
"Perhaps."
"Thanks a lot, Zarak," Carter muttered.
Then Khamsina spoke up. "By the white hairs of your beard, O sheik, have you grown so old that you forget your little Khamsina?"
Malik recognized her, as did others in the tribe. The sheik commanded his followers to put aside their rifles. The trio dismounted.
The clan had gone through many changes in five years, but despite the losses caused by time and violence, many of Khamsina's old friends remained to welcome her back into the fold. They had not forgotten the city girl who had mastered their ways and been initiated as a blood sister of the Nefrazi. As her companions, Major Namid and Carter were made more than welcome, quite a change from a moment earlier. Carter's spirits soared once he was no longer looking at a hedgehog of rifle snouts. Automatic rifles, the ubiquitous AK-47. It was amazing how the Soviet weapon had penetrated into the most remote locales, he thought. But when there's a product that everybody wants, it gets around.
The more distant quarters of the oasis gave up their denizens, as the women and children emerged from their places of hiding to join the impromptu celebration. Not even the babes in arms had cried out until the all-clear was signaled.
Sheik Malik embraced first Carter, then Major Namid. "A thousand pardons!" he said. "You will forgive us for doubting you. We believed you to be more spies, like the ones we captured yesterday."
"Spies?" Carter said.
"Yes, come to ferret out our secrets! We trapped them in the wadi and netted them like hares!" He laughed triumphantly.
A heavyset, black-bearded man, the sheik's nephew, said, "I took this from one of them!"
He proudly displayed a pistol. It was a Walther PPK with a custom-made checked handgrip.
Carter had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. The odds were against there being too many guns like that in these parts.
"Those spies — they're still alive?" he asked.
"Only until we plan a fitting end for them."
"They were rich with weapons and food. They enrich us at their expense!" Sheik Malik said.
"I'd like to see them," Carter said. "It's very important."
"As you wish, so shall it be done, O honored guest of the Nefrazi! I will take you to them."
Carter and Major Namid followed the white-bearded sheik to a tiny tent set apart from all the others. Malik's nephew, Mugrin, lifted the flap.
Malik told Carter, "In light of the great service you have done us in returning our dear Zarak, I make you a gift of these two spies. Do with them what you will. Torture them, geld them, kill them, as it pleases you."
"I don't think that will be necessary," Carter said.
The two spies sat back to back, bound and gagged, tied hand and foot and to each other.
A twist of the wrist, a snap of the spring, and Hugo was in Carter's hand, thin and long as a knitting needle, glimmering in the moonlight. Hugo's dramatic appearance greatly impressed the sheik and his nephew. They came from a long line of throat-slitters with a real appreciation for knives.
Carter went into the tent and began to cut the prisoners' bonds. Over his shoulder he told the sheik, "Believe it or not, they're on our side."
"What? You amaze me!"
They were Griff and Stanton.
Seventeen
This morning, the falcon was restless. It started violently at slight sounds. Its talons tore long slivers from the thorny branch where it perched, building a mound of wood shavings on the ground beneath it. Head bobbing, beak clicking, feathers ruffling, it communicated its unease.
Reguiba stroked its head, but the creature would not be easily soothed. Its close-packed feathers were as fine to the touch as fur.
"The helicopter is late," Idir said.
Reguiba shrugged. He was schooled in patience. All things came in their own time.
Presently, a lookout atop a rock cliff waved his arms. Idir said, "Here it comes!"
Water, camouflage, and weapons were the keys to the Crime Police camp. The camp was pitched at the site the Nefrazi called Ayn al Dra, the Spring of the Arms. Not long ago, it was a Nefrazi watering hole. Reguiba took it from them. Desert-born himself, he knew its value.
It was too bad that the tribesmen and his Crime Police were enemies, but how else could it be? There was not enough water for both. Somebody had to go to the wall.
The site was on the western side of a ridge, protected from creeping desert sands by twin rock spurs that curved far out, almost touching, forming a natural barrier. The spring itself was a bubbling pool of fresh, clear water sheltered by rock overhangs. A hundred feet above it was the hanging, house-sized boulder that some camp wit had named Nasser Rock because of its uncanny likeness to the profile of the late Egyptian leader. At the far end of the camp, directly opposite the spring, a flat stony oval served as a landing pad for the helicopters.
Covering nearly half the site was a complex network of tented tarpaulins, raised on poles and strung with lines, done up in camouflage patterns. It masked troops and supplies from the prying eyes of recon planes and spy satellites. It could shelter over three hundred Crime Police.
Reguiba enjoyed the thought that the onetime minions of the law were now his creatures. The desert and the Nefrazi had toughened them up. Soon they would be ready for big things.
He began the camp a long time ago as a project for the Libyans, who dearly wanted to destabilize Egypt. They had put him forward in Qom as the man who could lead Ifrit. They supplied his Crime Police with food and guns.
The troops were busy now, drilling, training, taking advantage of the short-lived morning coolness. Presently it would be too hot to move. Too hot for the fellahin city-dwellers, but not for Reguiba. He was a man of the desert.
The supply line was a long one. It began at Ayn al Ghazal, at the southeastern tip of Libya. Trucks ferried materiel across northern Sudan, by way of Selima Oasis, then over to Wadi Haifa. From there, it was barged down the Nile to El Diwan. Libyan agents and Egyptian traitors oversaw the last lap, bringing the supplies north by northwest in helicopters.
A fragile line. Without it, his Crime Police would quickly wither up and blow away.
Diversions in camp were few. The helicopter's arrival never failed to generate great interest.
The duo-rotor wide-bodied supply ship touched down on the flat like a bee settling on a flower.
Noncoms formed up men to off-load the supplies. The delivery crew didn't like to stay long. Reguiba was mildly surprised when a half-dozen of them got out of the copter and approached his tent.